Time Apart: Chapter 10

Sakura opened her eyes and let out a long sigh. She had been working on Naruto's wounds for hours now. It had been the strangest thing she had ever done. Every time she focused on a wound she thought was really serious, she would find that it was already sealing itself up. So, instead of working on the major injuries, she worked on all the smaller burns across his body. She had sent Hinata out earlier to get some gauze, and when she was nearing chakra depletion, she wrapped up the parts of his body that were still burned and sat back.

She and Hinata had gotten two rooms at the hotel in the town where Hinata said they had stayed before. When Jiraiya had regained consciousness, he had summoned Gamabunta and ridden back to Konoha with Lee. Tsunade would be able to do more for the legendary ninja's legs than Sakura could. If her guess was right, Tsunade would be here in a few days to nurse Naruto back to health, if he even needed it.

"How is he?" Hinata asked from the corner of the room. Despite the rancid smell of the poison sweating out of Naruto's body, the girl had never left his side.

"Honestly, I think he is going to be fine. I have never seen anything like his healing ability before in my life. Even without my help he would probably be fine in a week," she said. Standing up, she walked to the door. She paused for a second to look back at the Hyuuga girl. "You're in love with him aren't you?" she asked.

"Yes," Hinata said, without pausing to think. Sakura nodded sadly to herself. Hinata was a lot different from the shy little girl she remembered from the Chuunin exams.

"Tell him. Keep him close, and never let him go. I lost Sasuke, and I have nothing but regrets. I should have gone after him to begin with. Then all this wouldn't have happened," Sakura said. She leaned against the door for a moment, lost in thought. "Even if I had died, it would have been worth it." She left the room.

Walking across the hall to their sleeping quarters, Sakura took a shower and examined herself in the mirror. She would have a scar on her face from Kabuto's cuts for the rest of her life. Other than that, most of her injuries would be hidden. In the last four years she had become a very competent medical ninja, so she had managed to stop most of the scarring. Laying down in bed, she thought about what to do now.

Hinata had decided to take what Sakura said to heart. When Naruto woke up, she was going to tell him, and, whether he liked it or not, she was going to keep him close. She walked across the room to him. He was mostly covered in bandages, and the poison smelled pretty bad. She gathered up all of the towels that had been soaked with his sweat and carried them to the window. Ringing them out, she hung them up to dry.

It seemed like the poison had almost been completely removed from his system at this point. The smell was just lingering in the room. She was getting tired, but she didn't want to leave him alone in there. She sat down next to him, and began to doze off.

Naruto felt pressure on his chest. He also had a splitting headache and was really groggy. Additionally, upon opening his eyes, he found that one of them was covered in some kind of gauze. He tried to sit up, but discovered that he couldn't. Looking down, he found out why. Hinata had obviously fallen asleep, and at some point had rolled over to him.

"Now we're talking. You've been out for days," the Kyuubi boomed in his mind.

There was the whole matter of being stabbed and having my flesh melted off by chakra overload, Naruto responded silently. He decided to lay still for a little while longer and enjoy his position.

"You are going to be fine. I repaired all of the bad damage. That pink-haired twit took care of the rest. You won't even have any scars," the fox said. Naruto smiled to himself.

Thanks for the help back there, Naruto said in his mind. The Kyuubi was quiet for a moment.

"It's not like I did it for you. I just didn't want to die," he said.

Naruto chuckled as he pushed himself up, waking Hinata. With her eyes barely open, she surveyed her situation. Naruto was expecting some strange typical Hinata response, like an apology for laying on him or something. Instead, she leaped forward into a hug, tears streaming down her face.

"Thank God you're alive! I was worried," she said, clutching him tightly.

"What a great way to wake up. How lucky!" the Kyuubi said. "Glad I could be here for this one."

"Hinata, you're crushing me," Naruto said. She released him quickly and stepped back.

"How do you feel?" She asked. He grabbed the gauze on his face, and began to unwrap it.

"Groggy, but otherwise ok. Kit said he healed all of the bad damage, and Sakura took care of the rest," Naruto said.

"Even when you were unconscious, he could hear what was happening?" she asked. Naruto nodded in affirmation. "He needs to quit spying. Did he tell you anything else?"

Naruto raised his eyebrows, "No, should he have?"

"I could, but I was going to let her tell you herself," the Kyuubi said. Hinata took a deep breath.

"We didn't get to finish talking the other day, and I have something I want to tell you," she said. Naruto nodded. Unfortunately, Sakura opened the door and walked in.

"I heard voices," she said groggily, then she saw Naruto standing up, and finishing taking off the gauze. "NARUTO! You shouldn't be walking yet, you … you're … not wounded at all?" she finished looking at his shirtless body. He had no scars, save for the one that he had gotten when Sasuke had used the Chidori on him.

"Yeah, I suppose I heal up quick! Kit said you helped," he said.

"Bad move kid, you must be groggier than I thought you were," the Kyuubi said in his mind. Naruto mentally kicked himself. Sakura was the only person who didn't know about Kit.

Sakura asked the obvious question, "How did you heal that fast? Why don't you have any scars?"

Naruto shrugged, "Bloodline ability?" he said, half asking if she was going to believe it. He wasn't that lucky.

"Kit was the name of your pet fox. He's dead. How could he tell you anything?" Sakura asked, finally noticing his slip up from before.

Naruto sighed. Well I haven't got a choice, I am going to have to tell her, he thought to himself. "Sakura, you may want to sit down." She did. "You remember the Kyuubi attacked Konoha sixteen years ago?" She nodded. "He wasn't killed like they told you. The Fourth gave his life to seal the demon inside a baby. That was me." He measured Sakura's reaction. She had a quick mind, so he was guessing that she was going back over every time he had done something spectacular.

"The Kyuubi is alive, inside you?" she asked. She thought back to the battle between Naruto and Orochimaru. "You let him free to fight Orochimaru! That's what all that dangerous chakra was," she said.

"Yes. He has been repairing my body for me. I call him Kit, because up until that fight, his spirit had been transferred into the body of that fox," Naruto said.

Sakura sat there silently for a moment, replaying some of the conversations she had had with Naruto. She stood up after a moment and said, "I apologize. I've treated you badly, and I had no idea."

Naruto laughed at that. "You've treated me better than most of the village, so don't worry about it."

Sakura gave a weak smile. "I need some time to think, excuse me." She left the room.

Naruto turned to Hinata. "Help me walk to the bath house. I smell terrible," he said. Hinata smiled and stood up. Naruto put his arm around her shoulder and she helped him walk out the door and down the steps. "Let me take a bath and then we can go somewhere private and finish our conversation. Uninterrupted this time."

She nodded and walked him towards the male bathing house. After his assurances that he would be ok, and that he would only be in there for a few minutes, she waited outside. The minutes passed like hours as she became more and more nervous. She was startled at a tap on her shoulder. Turning around she saw that it was Sakura. Hinata noticed she had her pack, and wasn't wearing her headband.

"I'm leaving," Sakura said. Hinata looked on with a dull shock.

"They will label you as a missing nin," Hinata said. In a way she understood.

"I know, but I doubt they will come after me. I was never that good at being a ninja anyway, but I am pretty good at medicine. I'm tired of all this fighting and killing, so I am going to find a hospital somewhere, get a job, and be normal."

Hinata nodded. "I am taking your advice to heart," she said to Sakura. "Whether he likes it or not, he's going to have to put up with me." Sakura smiled.

"That's the spirit. Tell Naruto that I'm sorry, and I hope he understands," Sakura said as she turned to walk off. Hinata watched her leave. Almost as if by cue, as soon as she had turned the corner out of sight, Naruto stepped out of the bath house.

"That was refreshing," Naruto said, still a little wet from a sporadic towel-dry. Hinata smiled and walked over to him, placing herself underneath his shoulder. She walked him back to the hotel, and they went into the room Sakura had been staying in. It didn't smell in there.

Naruto was quick to notice Sakura's headband lying in the floor with a scratch through it. "So she left," he said sadly.

"It didn't have anything to do with her finding out about you," Hinata said. "She talked to me before she left. She is going to go practice medicine somewhere."

Naruto nodded and sat back against the wall. He picked up Sakura's headband and mused silently to himself. Now I have both of their headbands. Team 7 is down to me now.

"Quit your crying, lets get back to the business of getting me out of your mind. I'm tired of it already," the Kyuubi said.

"Um, about what I was saying earlier," Hinata said.

"Hold that thought," Naruto said struggling to his feat again. Hinata groaned in frustration. "We still have a listener," he said, tapping his head with his finger.

"Oh," Hinata said, understanding. "Kit."

"I'm going to summon him a body a little more befitting of a Demon Lord this time," Naruto said out loud.

"Actually, about that," the Kyuubi began, "I was noticing with my last host, that just like being bound in you as a baby, being bound in him was allowing him to adjust to me properly. If you put me back in a kit, he may grow to be much bigger than a normal fox in a few years."

Naruto chuckled. "Never mind, he says he wants to be in a baby fox."

Hinata smiled as Naruto bit his thumb and preformed the summoning jutsu. "Awww," she said when the fox appeared. "It's even cuter than the last one!" Her memory flashed back to her sliding the knife in to Kit's neck. She stopped smiling.

Naruto finished the ritual and Kit seemed to stretch out his limbs, getting used to his new body. "Good to be back on the outside!" he said.

"Welcome back," Hinata said. She paused for a minute and then pointed to the door. "Now get out."

Naruto chuckled as Kit walked to the slightly open door haughtily. "You two kids don't do anything I wouldn't do," he said as he walked out the door. Hinata closed the door behind him.

"No more interruptions," Naruto said. "Lets finish our conversation now."

Finally faced with the prospect of actually telling him how she felt, Hinata's stomach turned against her. Steeling herself, she started, "Well, you see, since we were kids, I always …" there was a knock at the door.

"Naruto, are you in there?" It was Tsunade. Naruto had started to answer, when Hinata crossed the span of the room in a heartbeat, and, in the most surprising and daring moment of her life, she planted a kiss right on Naruto's mouth.

A moment passed in which they were both shocked at what she had done. Slowly, Naruto embraced her. After a few seconds, they came up for air. "That's what I wanted to say," she said.

"It was good to hear," Naruto said. Just then, the door crashed open.

"Just what in the hell is going… oh," Tsunade said. She covered her mouth with her hand. "I always knew you would eventually take after Jiraiya."

"HEY!" Naruto exploded. "I'm not a pervert, ok! Anyway, you got here fast."

"I rode Gamabunta back. I was in a hurry to come and heal you, although I can see you don't need me," she said. Kit trotted in, weaving between her legs. Naruto still hadn't removed his hand from around Hinata's waist.

"Finally! I thought you two would never get together!" the little fox exploded.

Tsunade looked down at him, "Since when did you become a match-maker!"

"I'm not, but after listening to her talk about him the whole mission, I was about tired of it," he responded. Hinata turned a bright shade of red. Naruto finally released her and walked over to Tsunade.

"Did you come alone?" he asked.

"Yeah, Gamabunta wouldn't let anyone else ride. He kept saying that he wasn't a taxi over and over. The only reason he let me ride him back was because it was to help you," she said. Naruto handed her Sakura's headband.

Tsunade looked at it for a moment. "Where did she go?"

"She went to lead a normal life somewhere. She said she was going to find work as a doctor," Hinata said.

Tsunade seemed to think for a moment. "Normally, she would have to be declared a missing nin. However, you two saw her ask me permission to resign, and I accepted. After you have had some time to rest in Konoha, perhaps your new Team could locate her when Konoha gets caught back up on our missions and let her know."

Naruto smiled. "What team is that?"

Tsunade smiled back, "Judging from your success with this mission, and considering you killed an S class criminal, I am going to make you the jounin sensei of your own four man team. It's going to require juggling some of the other teams around, but Hinata, Lee, and Kit will be the members."

Naruto laughed, "Kit is going to be a Konoha ninja?"

"I actually can't think of a more fitting punishment. I can instate him as a top secret Genin. We can even get him a cute little headband to wear," Tsunade said.

Kit surprised everyone with his next comment. "I always wanted one of those." When they all stared at him, he felt the need to defend his statement. "What? I'm serious! I think they're neat."

"Wow," Naruto said. He took Hinata's hand and gave it a squeeze. "Let's get going then. I've got to take this lady out on a date when we get back."

After transferring the first eye, Kabuto had discovered why Kakashi kept it hidden all the time. He couldn't turn it off. That made transferring the second eye more difficult, so he decided to keep it frozen instead. Placing an eye patch over his sharingan, Kabuto put the second in a jar and froze it with an ice jutsu. In case he switch bodies at some point, he would still be able to make use of the saved eye.

He looked down at Orochimaru's mangled body. He briefly considered burying his former master, but, in the end, he decided he didn't really like him that much anyway. Taking the Snake scroll from the dead man's pouch, Kabuto signed it in blood. He would practice his summoning later.

Shouldering his pack, Kabuto headed back to the Sound village. It was time to introduce them to their new leader.

It took a little over a week to walk back to Konoha. The travel had been slow at first, but, as the days went by, Naruto continued to gain more of his strength back. The last day had been spent running. When they reached the gates, Naruto was shocked to see a large banner. It read, "Welcome Back Naruto!"

"I sent word on when to expect us last night while you slept," Tsunade said. Naruto nodded numbly. As the group walked into town, there was cheering. This was definitely something Naruto had never experienced before.

Posters hung out of the sides of windows, proclaiming Naruto as a hero. News had apparently spread that he had killed Orochimaru. Looking around in wonder, Naruto saw Hinata smiling.

"About time everyone else recognized what an amazing ninja you are," she said.

"I'm the one who killed him," Kit grumbled, but even he could see if wouldn't be a great idea to tell everyone that. Tsunade walked with them all the way through the crowds to her office. Naruto noticed that, along the way, there were still some people standing in the back giving him dirty looks. He sighed. It wasn't going to matter what he did, there were some people that would never accept him.

Tsunade turned around to face the crowd when they reached her office. She beckoned off to one side, and Rock Lee stepped out. He ran over to join Naruto and Hinata. Tsunade raised her hands to quiet the crowd and began to speak.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, these three ninjas went beyond the call of duty to fight an S class criminal. Even when the great Jiraiya was injured, they did not retreat, and our very own Uzumaki Naruto defeated our most hated missing nin, Orochimaru," she paused for the cheers. "The newly elected council and I were debating on what to give him as a suitable reward for such bravery. We couldn't come up with anything, so we are going to ask him."

Naruto pointed to himself and silently worded, "Me?" Tsunade shook her head yes, and called him up to speak. Naruto gazed out at the crowd, and was relieved to see that most of them weren't using the customary glare they usually reserved for him. "I couldn't ask for a better reward that what I see before me. Thank you," he said. He had to stop speaking. It had been a long time since Naruto had actually shed tears. He had taught himself at an early age to avoid them.

Today though, he cried for a reason that he had never cried for before. He had no defense against it. He waved one last time and then retreated into the building. He could hear Tsunade still talking to the crowd, and he walked over to the window. He heard the door open and close again, and Hinata walked over to him with Kit scurrying behind her.

She reached up and wiped one of the tears off of his face. "I'm happy for you," she said. "They can finally see you for what you are, a hero."

"Oh please!" Kit said. "I killed him."

Naruto laughed. "You hungry?"

"Yes," Hinata said. Naruto grabbed her hand and looked down at Kit.

"Give our report for us. See you later!" he said. With that, he flew out the window with Hinata.

Later that night, Tsunade was sitting back, sharing a bottle of sake with Jiraiya and Shizune. Jiraiya could walk just fine, but it was very doubtful that he was going to be nearly as fast or effective as he used to be. He was taking it pretty well, all things considered.

"Now, I can finally concentrate on writing my books!" he said. "Plus, the ladies love battle scars."

Tsunade and Shizune rolled their eyes. "You know what?" Tsunade asked.

"What's that," Shizune replied, gulping down another drink.

"The thing that pleases me most of all about this whole thing, is that the Fourth finally got one of his wishes. The people see Naruto as a hero now," she said. Jiraiya nodded.

"There will always be a few that resent him, though," he said.

"I don't think that will cause too much of a problem."

Hiashi watched out the window as the demon boy escorted his daughter back to the compound. He was furious when they kissed his daughter directly had not worked before. He was going to have to think of some other way to keep her away from the demon. I'll be damned if a daughter of mind consorts with that filth, he thought.

He was startled when he turned around and there was a fox sitting in the window, watching him. He was more startled when the fox spoke.

"Those two are under my protection," the fox said. Hiashi fell back into a fighting stance.

"Kyuubi! I knew you were in league with that boy. I will end this now!"

"HA!" the fox laughed. "Don't think that you have the power to kill me yourself. Your strongest warrior, the Fourth Hokage, couldn't do it, and you are a far cry from him." Hiashi didn't move. "Think on this, I got in here without any of your guards noticing. If you cause any problems for those two, I won't be here to talk next time. It would be child's play to kill you and blame it on the Cloud." Then in a puff of smoke, he was gone.

"You think he bought it?" Naruto asked when Kit rounded the corner.

"He looked pretty scared to me. If he does try something, he will know I was bluffing," Kit said.

"He won't," Naruto said. After a light pause, "All the same though, we should work on some more ways for me to send your own Chakra through the link into your body."

"Yes," Kit said. "I have been thinking of some new things we could try. We are in a unique position to come up with some great new techniques." The two walked through the streets in silence then, hoping no one heard Kit speaking out loud.

I wonder what our next mission is going to be.

Authors Note:Well everyone that's it. I want to thank everyone for their kind reviews, and I hope you all enjoyed it. I have some vague ideas for some stories that happen after this, so there is a very distinct chance for a sequel. I debated whether or not to go ahead and just tack the sequel on to the end of this and just consider it one big story.

Since this was definitely one story arc however, I think if I do end up writing a sequel it will get its own story. Right now though, I need a break from all this writing to fully enjoy things like Age of Empires III, F.E.A.R., and Civilization IV. Once again, thanks to you all for reading my story, and thanks to my wife for editing it.